Gregory Maguire has disappointed me.

Maguire is an author.  He has built a career based on taking classic fairy tales and fantasy stories and developing his own worlds out of them.  They definitely become not your grandmother's childhood stories.  His takes on the stories are full of adult themes, turning them very dark, political, and mysterious.  On the outset, this sounds very intriguing and worth investing your time and money. Sadly, you would be mistaken.  This is my public warning to not make the same mistake I have by purchasing his collection and spending many years slogging through his books.

His first, and certainly most successful and recognizable novel has been Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

                                              

This book was the source material for the hugely-popular musical Wicked, with music and lyrics by the ever-talented Stephen Schwartz.

                             

I read the novel about twelve years ago, and I really enjoyed it.  A raw, dirty, sexy, almost dystopian Oz than has ever been seen before.  I discovered the rest of his catalog and snapped them all up expecting the same type of twisted and irreverent retellings of the stories.  I got that, but not in a way that they were still enjoyable.  Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (his take on Cinderella) was good, but from there, one after the next, they became less and less interesting and cohesive.  Mirror Mirror is an interpretation of Snow White, told from the perspective of multiple characters all at once. Then he wrote a modern ghost story called Lost that focuses on an American descendant of Charles Dickens.  They all feel like he is trying to do too much and just impress readers with his extensive vocabulary.  They simply ceased to be fun.  And don't even quote me on these brief and rough descriptions; it has been so long and they left such a poor impression on me that I don't even remember for certain what the plots actually were.

On an off, he has returned to his Oz.  I thought, "Okay, Wicked was good; maybe going back to his roots, so to speak, will make for better reading."  Yyyyyeah, not so much.  Son of a Witch follows the Wicked Witch's son as he has his own adventures as teen, trying to shake off the stigma of his mother, whom he doesn't even know for certain if she was his mother, and having sexual dalliances with a young nun and a married male soldier.  A Lion Among Men follows the Cowardly Lion (obviously) through confusing political upheaval throughout the land and his nonacceptance by anyone.  And Out of Oz, the final book of the series, forget it; I think it brought a dense Dorothy back into the picture in the midst of more political trouble.  Again, one by one, they became harder and harder to finish.  I just didn't care.

Last night, I finished his latest masterpiece, After Alice, a different perspective of Alice in Wonderland, my favorite book growing up,  He remains in Wonderland barely half the book, flashing back and forth between a friend trying to find Alice and everyone else in the real world casually wondering where she has gone while her father has a dinner party with an American who has adopted a runaway slave boy and, I think, Charles Darwin.  WHAT??!!

So Mr. Maguire, you started out with such promise in my estimation (which, granted, really doesn't account for much).  My wife has read all of your books, too.  We both agree we are done with you. I'm sorry; I want to like your writing (I really do!), but you have failed me for the last time.  For anyone still tempted or curious, I recommend save your money; use the library.

Now I'm off to figure out what to read next.  I think it's either Game of Thrones or Ron Chernow's Hamilton biography that was the basis for the musical (there's the reference for the day).